BHUBANESWAR, INDIA, June 15, 2014 (Odisha Today): The Govardhan Peeth, the seat of Puri Shankaracharya, today slammed the Odisha Government for not imposing a blanket ban on devotees climbing chariots during Lord Jagannath's Rath Yatra and demanded to reconsider its decision. "The state government should reconsider its decision and impose a complete ban during the entire festival. No decision should be taken in a haste," the official spokesman of Govardhan Peeth Manoj Kumar Rath said here.

Stating that the government's decision leaves ample scope for priests and servitors to allow devotees to climb on the chariots and touch the Deities, Rath appealed people to raise their voice to protest the move. In absence of Shankaracharya Swami Nischalananda Saraswati, Rath along with Govardhan Peeth Council chairman Amiya Kumar Mohapatra and Biswamber Das, Vice-President of Mukti Mandap Pandit Sabha of Sri Jagannth Temple, rejected the state government's decision of allowing the devotees to climb the chariots and touching the Deities.

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